lysdor's travel reports

Tuusula Museum-Road Trail

I recently had the idea to visit the place where one of Finnish great composer was living. The reason was quite obvious as I live next to his monument I had to visit the home of Jean Sibelius. I headed North to Järvenpää (38 KM from Helsinki) by car (easely reachable also by train or bus), in the area known as Tuusulan Rantatie This narrow 4 km road next to Tuusula Lake is nowadays a protected museum-road because the area attracted several artists during the National Romantic period at the beginning of the twentieth century. This unique community of artists attracted, Nobel prize-winning author F. E. Sillanpää, author Juhani Aho, poets J.H. Erkko and Eino Leino and artist-painter Pekka Halonen to work there, enjoy the peace and quiet and the beauty of surrouding nature. The road can be explored on foot which takes approx. 2 hours and is a refreshing getaway from the heat of Helsinki during summertime.

Favourite spots:

I didn't visit all but concentrated on Aleksis Kivi, Pekka Halonen and Jean Sibelius. All pictures show only the exterior as it wasn't allowed to take photos inside but I have included some links on the person's life and also on their home where pictures of interior can be seen.

What's really great:

Death cottage of ALEKSIS KIVI This finnish national writer spent the last months of his life (1872) in this cottage where he died at the age of 38 years. It is now a nationally important monument. It looked so tiny and neat as a doll's house. The cottage was closed but I had a peak inside through the windows and saw 2 separate rooms. The first one was the kitchen with a stove heated with wood, a simple table and a couple of chairs. The second one was the bedroom with a narrow bed and rocking-chair. And as I walked around, I could smell tar that has been used on the cottage walls. The existence of this particular cottage reminds us of what this area looked like before the famous villa settlement and art community sprang up. Here is a short biography, selected works and an example of Kivi's poetry: http://kirjasto.sci.-fi/akivi.htm

Sights:

AINOLA - Home of Jean SIBELIUS

Jean Sibelius had an absolute ear for music and wanted to work in silence. He heard the music in his mind and didn't want to be disdurbed while in the process of composing. This is the main reason why master composer Jean Sibelius built Ainola, named after his wife Aino to be sufficiently far from the temptations of Helsinki. What Sibelius meant here was the time he spent with his fellow artist friends in the restaurant of hotel Kämp, recently restaured and re-opened.

The move in 1905 to the countryside started his most creative era. He was inspired by the nature surrounding him and on many occasions he said: Here in Ainola the silence speaks!

He didn't design the quite modest looking two storages house but gave it to the renewed finnish architect and friend Lars SONCK. He only had few requests such as seeing the lake Tuusulanjärvi from his study room.
As he heard pitches and tonalities everywhere in nature especially birds' singings...

Other recommendations:

...He also had precise *vision* of how to decorate the interior of his home. He experienced all colors as musical sounds, each tone possessing an exact pitch. This is how the main fireplace got its bright green color - he heard it in F which was green to Sibelius.

Only the first floor can be visited. There are one sitting-room with a grand-piano offered to Sibelius almost against his will as no music or sounds were allowed in his house unless he chose to.

A dining-room and 2 bedrooms transformed after his children left home (he had 5 of them!). One into a library and smoking room. In here there is a small table with different ashtrays and by checking each morning which one was used, his wife Aino could tell in what mood was her husband (before talking to him). There are also over 3,000 volumes of classical and contemporary masterpieces which Sibelius read incessantly in their original languages.